In modern surgery, a plurality of different instrument heads/tools such as e.g. drilling or milling heads are used, which each can be detachably attached on/put into a hand piece comprising an instrument drive. This allows the surgeon to change the instrument head (attached on/put into a hand piece) depending on the requirement of the application during use of the hand piece. In order to give the surgeon the most easy access to these instrument heads (which are referred to as tools in the following), said tools are usually stored in a sorted manner in a surgical tool set. In order to avoid damages on the tools and ensure a quick finding of a required tool, the tools are not stored in loose manner, but are held in receiving sleeves which are inserted in a hole array of the tool set or fixed therein. In order to make it easier for the surgeon to find the respectively required tool, the receiving sleeves have a color coding in many cases. In addition, it is possible to place a template comprising printed OP paths on the receiving sleeves, to further simplify the selection of the respectively required tool.
Conventional tool sets for the storing/keeping of surgical tools can be purchased from various suppliers and hence belong to the general prior art. These known tool sets essentially consist of a plastic or metal box comprising a hinged cover which can be opened and closed, in which an intermediate shelf or an insert being placed between the bottom and the cover of the box so as to be parallel to the bottom of the box. The intermediate shelf has round holes into which (plastic) receiving sleeves for receiving tools are inserted. Here, the receiving sleeves are designed as one-piece, massive hollow cylinders which each have a receiving opening for a particular surgical tool. Surgical tools, in particular dental tools or rotary tools of this kind, have a distal tool engagement section and a proximal shaft portion, wherein receiving sleeves having different diameters of the tool receiving openings allow the correct and exact mounting of tools having different shaft diameters. Further, the receiving sleeves are provided with a color coding so that it is easier for a surgeon to find a required tool, wherein a printed template is preferably provided which can be laid over the receiving sleeves and is imprinted with OP paths and designations of the tools respectively received in one of the receiving sleeves.
Apart from the careful storing of surgical tools and their fast retrievability during a surgical operation, the thorough and frequent cleaning and, where required, the sterilization of surgical tools is of utmost importance.
Whereas conventional tool sets are well suited for storing surgical tools and also ensure a quick retrieval of the respectively required tool during a surgery, a disadvantage of said conventional tool sets relies in that surgical tools have to be taken out of a conventional tool set (storage box) for cleaning purposes and thereafter have to be shelved again therein, because the cleaning of tools is impossible or only hardly possible with conventional instrument sets when the tools are inserted in the instrument set (storage box). This is mainly due to the massive construction of the receiving sleeves and of the instrument set itself, largely preventing the received tools from being washed with cleaning fluids or gases. The plastic box of the tool set is difficult to access for cleaning fluids and the massive construction of the receiving sleeves and their large contact surface with the received instruments cause an only insufficient cleaning of the portions of the tools received in the receiving sleeves.
As there are up to 90 different surgical tools which may be received in a single tool set, the removal of all tools for cleaning them and a subsequent re-equipment of the tool set is very time-consuming. Moreover, surgical tools have to be gently treated for a long service life, in order to prevent any dulling or damaging of tips or edges, for instance, and the tools have to be thoroughly cleaned after each application, further enlarging the expenditure of time.
It also happens that soilings accumulate even on the tool set itself if it is repeatedly used for receiving contaminated tools for instance during a surgery. In the event that a contaminated tool is put back into a receiving sleeve, any contaminations such as bone splinters or blood clinging on the tool may remain adhered in the hollow cylinder of the receiving sleeve or fall onto the template laid on the receiving sleeves. It is also required that the space between the bottom of the tool set and the intermediate shelf in which the receiving sleeves are inserted is kept very clean. This is why conventional tool sets have to be dismantled for cleaning the receiving sleeves and the remaining constituent parts of the set (plastic box, cover, intermediate shelf); subsequently, the various constituent parts of the tool set have to be cleaned individually and then the set must be assembled again afterwards. The expenditure of time is very large here, too, and the numerous steps of the cleaning method (dismantling into individual parts, cleaning each individual part) offers many occasions for damaging the tool set or for operator errors during cleaning. As the massive construction of the receiving sleeves hinders the cleaning liquids from penetrating into the receiving opening of the receiving sleeves, a manual subsequent cleaning process has to be carried out, if need be.
In order to withstand high temperatures during sterilization, any plastic portions of conventional tool sets have to be made from a special temperature-resistant plastic, increasing the production costs. In addition, soilings adhere on a plastic material due to its positive superficial charge for a longer time than on other materials such as metals, for instance, which makes the cleaning of the tool set still more difficult. Even in drying the tool set after the cleaning process, the massive construction of conventional tool sets and their applicable material plastics prove to be disadvantageous.
Thus, the prior art knows tool sets and receiving sleeves for surgical instruments which due to the massive construction of the receiving sleeves and the tool sets do not allow a cleaning of the received surgical instruments in the equipped state of the tool set (storage box).